Welcome to the Creative Switch, the podcast inspiring the sensibly successful to switch on their unexpressed creativity for a more fulfilled life. I can hardly believe I'm saying this, but this is the final episode of season three. It's also episode 36, which feels like a real milestone. Anyone who has started a podcast will know how much work goes into it and how much commitment it takes to keep bringing these conversations to you. They have been genuinely life affirming for me. They've been useful in very real ways in my own creative life, often arriving at exactly the right moment. If you're a regular listener, you'll know that I usually start each episode with some current creative news and end each episode by updating you on my creative adventures and how what I've learned from my guests has helped me to move forward - and at the same time might just be what you need to overcome a creative challenge of your own. This time I wanted to do something a little different. I thought it might be good to look back over the last 12 episodes and reflect on what has come through most strongly for me across this season. I'll be sharing some of the ideas and perspectives my guests have given us and the clear pattern which is emerging through the podcast and as I explore the creative life through my writing in the Bold Types publication. But before that, if you're feeling a bit stuck or creatively confused and need some new ideas of what to do next, my conversation with Helena Holrick is packed full of useful and practical advice, so you'll want to keep listening. You'll also want to listen right to the end, as I have something brand new to share, which might just be what you need. First, though, it's time for some creative wisdom in the Season three roundup.

If you've spent any time thinking about how creativity works, you might already have a sense that there are certain conditions that help things flow. Moments when ideas move more easily, when things begin to connect, when it feels like you're able to produce your best work. As I've listened back to this season's conversations and thought about everything my guests have shared, I've started to notice some clear themes. Different stories, different practices, different kinds of work, and yet similar patterns returning again and again, I thought it might be useful to share some reflections and quotes in this season from those real life experiences. One theme that came through really strongly was belief. Many guests talk about points where they had to trust themselves, often before they had certainty or reassurance that things would work out. When Hannah Begbie missed out on being considered for shortlist in a competition because she posted her entry without enough stamps and the chair of the judges said her work would have done well. She kicked herself. She realised then, and recommends now, that, "You're not going to be able to do this unless you back yourself because no one else is going to do it for you." Then several people describe being drawn towards something that feels meaningful to them, something that shapes their creative practice and how they continue to move forward. A sense of purpose. Actor and singer Juliet Crosbie described the way performers are driven to make their own impact. "We're not saving lives on any level, she says, but we're trying to help people make sense of what it is to be alive." And guests often talk about navigating the life alongside creative work, about energy, attention and the different phases a creative project moves through over time. Throughout the cycles they're trying to find balance, whatever else is going on. Nina Lenton protects a pocket of her week for her creative work and said, "You're not likely to get me to do anything on a Friday morning because that's when I will go for a walk and take some photos. It's just become a thing." There's often a moment of insight in these stories, a point where something shifts, where a new idea becomes clear, or where a different way forward appears. I love how Rebecca Lacey responds to these sparks of inspiration. Instead of questioning things rationally, she gets words down for her poems or gets working on a new piece of art as soon as the idea pops up. When something pulls at her curiosity, she follows it. Those moments are present in almost every conversation and they are certainly present in my own experience too. Many of my guests have taken bold action even when things felt uncertain, choosing to take a step into the unknown without having everything resolved and recognising that discomfort often accompanies change. Bespoke jewellery designer Ruth Chipperfield shared, "Sometimes you, as a creative person, just have to have the courage to break out of the narrative and go in a different direction and trust the process that all paths will lead to the right point." And then there is support. Sometimes that support comes from within, through understanding ourselves, how we work and what we need. Best selling author Emma Stonex realised that, "Writing was an opportunity to express myself without any pressure. There was a really lovely refuge in that." And then sometimes support comes from the environments we're in, the resources we can access and the people who encourage us. It is this last theme we are exploring in today's conversation. Before we get to that, do remember to head to my website nikkivallance.com where I've gathered even more insights and advice from my guests in your free guide to seven common creative challenges and how to overcome them. And listen next to hear today's conversation with a key member of my own support team which is why it feels like such a fitting one to include here and why she's my first returning guest, Helena Holrick.

Hello, Helena, and welcome back to the Creative Switch. It's so lovely to have you here. Let's crack on because I know we've got a lot to cover. So I'm just going to explain. The reason why I asked you back is because things have evolved since this podcast first started and I wanted to bring you on because I know how useful, helpful, brilliant you are at supporting people who are trying to do what many of the listeners are trying to do, which is to reconnect with their creativity or to involve it more in their lives to feel like they are living creatively.

Yeah.

So that's the majority of what we're going to be talking about. But before we do that, could you just tell everybody who you are and what you do?

I absolutely will. So, for those of you who've heard me before, I did a very lovely episode with Nikki around getting your creativity out. I am Helena Holbrick. I am Danish. I founded a company called Helping you shine in 2014, but I've really been a coach, guide and mentor since about the age of four or more technically, since about 2001, 2002, when I really started getting involved in communication, how to get the best out of people and trained in all manner of things that help to make that happen. And because creativity is really something that I see as innate within every single one of us, we just have to figure out what kind of creativity that creative is within us. So, yeah, I hold space for people to come out of themselves and to give their brilliance to the world. So technically, I take the brilliance out of your head. I give it a shape and a structure alongside you by asking you really great questions, giving you some good space to think about that. And then I help you shape and structure it so that it actually has a place in the world, whether that is a commercial place in the world or something that actually has a place in your world.

Brilliant.

That's fantastic. Okay, so maybe what we could do is if we think about people who are at different stages of that journey, I think that might be quite helpful. So let's start with somebody who might have stumbled across this podcast who's thinking, gosh, I always used to love X, Y, Z, whatever that is. And why, why am I not doing that anymore? What's happened? How can I get a bit of that joy back into my life? So how would you, in your role, if you were working with them, how would you support that kind of person? They probably wouldn't even know they need you yet, would they?

No, no, they wouldn't. And this is that encouragement to. I think a lot of people say this, you know, get quiet, listen to the heart or bliss, but what does that look like? And so, so I think it shows up as a sort of gnawing or a longing. There's something inside that doesn't feel right. It might behaviorally show up as snapping at people, feeling jealous when you see someone doing the thing that you used to do, or doing anything that looks like a freedom to you, that is creative in some way. That's actually the thing to look for, is to notice when you are feeling those types of feelings, like there's something missing or I'm a bit narked at you always saying you're doing this. Well, the thing is to do is to slow it right down and go, all right, so I'm feeling a bit annoyed in this moment or irritated or whatever. It's like, well, so what is it inside me that I'm longing for? Is it peace? Is it creativity? Is it expression? Is it wanting to pick up a pen and paper and just do writing? What is it and what would happen if I allowed myself 2 minutes, 4 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes of doing that? And here comes the excuse that's likely to come up or, but I don't have the time to do that or that's for other people, you know, because the mind gremlins come in. So my suggestion is that, because most people who feel like that feel a bit time pressured. So the trick is to make a 20 minute date with yourself, to actually use your calendar or your appointment and to just make a 20 minute date to go. I was really annoyed about that the other day. I'm just going to sit with that and actually, I don't know, get out pen and paper. If that was the hankering or, or actually go. I used to enjoy painting. I'm just going to do that or I'm going to take my camera out or whatever it is. Things that are accessible in the moment. You don't have to go and buy things, you don't have to go and do big preparation. You book in 20 minutes and you go, what was that all about? What am I really longing for? And that's a really powerful question.

Yeah, brilliant. That sparks a memory in me, actually. I love this. Whenever we have a conversation, there's things that are buried that we just forget about aren't there. And it's just made me think, okay, so there was a time when I was right at the beginning of my writing journey. I was working in a full time job, I was really busy with young kids, whatever, and I was trying to reconnect with my creativity. And at the time I didn't know you, but I had another coach. And what I worked out was maybe what I needed to do was measure how much creativity I felt I had in my day. And then I thought, well, I could do that creatively by giving the scale of how much creativity I have in my day a color. And so I had this range of colours and the top color was my favorite colour, which is turquoise. So I had this little chart which I was doing every day just by hand where I was rating. And the first thing then I did in this process was to go and buy a turquoise pencil.

Yes to that.

Yeah. It made me feel really excited that even though I didn't have any idea what was going to happen with the kind of exploration I was going on, I just felt like I'd chosen something for myself. And I think that's really important. It's actually recognizing that this excuse we give ourselves about time or any other excuse is because we have blocked it. It's not anybody else's fault.

No, not in a blaming way. We fall into feeling responsible or over responsible for the people and the things around us and the things that feel frivolous within that responsibility then start to fall away because you think by eliminating those things you can do better at the responsible, serious things that you can do. But it actually starts to backfire on you because it strips away your aliveness. So I have a group called Fire up and Feel Alive and that really is around what makes you feel alive. So it was great to really just hear you just then because your key word there was excited. So if you are feeling lackluster in that way, slightly stuck, slightly annoyed, grumbly in some way, something's missing. The chances are that you've forgotten how to be excited. So anything that is a route in, including a turquoise pencil, which when you pick it up, you just go, oh yeah, this is part of me too, that that's what you're looking for. You're looking for excitement counter to longing.

Yeah, Brilliant. Okay, so somebody starts that, first of all, recognize something's missing. They maybe identify that they know that there's something creative they loved. They're starting to explore to find out how they can get that into their lives. So some people will be fine. They'll just go ahead and do that. But some people will need a nudge or a little bit of, okay, you've made this contract with yourself, but you're just not doing it. So what advice and support would you give somebody at that point in their journey?

Okay, so here's the invitation. The invitation is to treat it like another responsibility that you have, because you know how to do responsibility, because that is why you're not doing the creative stuff. But if you turn it into a responsibility, and by that I mean you allocate time to it, you allocate energy to it. I don't know if this came up in the last time we were talking, but. But I talk about life on your terms. So we're going to make room for this person in this state. I've recognized it, and yet I'm still not doing it. I'm going to invite you to filter your world or filter everything through these five, because one of these will be your route in to doing more of the creative stuff. So terms stands for time, energy, resources, money and skills. So time, energy, resources, money and skills. The way that this works is that you go, okay, well, I need to make the time for it. So actually, on a Saturday morning, before everybody gets up at 8am I'm going to make a cup of coffee and I'm just going to make time to stick some paint on a canvas, you know, or whatever your expression is. So it's about making space and time. It doesn't have to be an hour, it can be 20 minutes. It's anything that allows you the seriousness of a date with yourself. So you're going to have an artist date, artist in the widest sense of it. You know, whatever your artistic expression is. Energy is also that excitement that we just talked about. So does it make you excited to think I've just bought a whole new set of colored pencils and I'm just going to sit and draw the sunrise? You know, does that make you excited now? You know that you're in the right direction? So you just follow that. You record, you know, notice any of the - but you could be tidying up your la la la la la. You ignore that and you go, yeah, but I've got a date. My diary says I've got this time allocated, so I'm just going to take these pencils and do it. You know when people do the, oh, my gosh, I can't exercise. And they say, lay your clothes out the night before. I'm going to suggest that you pack your little activity bag the night before and you take that to wherever you're going to do this activity. So time, energy, resources, that is the pack of pencils or whatever it is. So what do you need so that you don't have any excuses to get in your own way? Lay it out at a different time to during the date. So the date is I pick up my bag and I've got it. I've got the time, I've got the energy and I've got the resources. So now we're excited about doing it. Money. So two things. One, you allocate a tiny amount of resources to it. It could be £20 to go into your favorite artistic shop or whatever you need for your artistic expression. You think, right, for my creative hot date with myself, I'm gonna need one of these, one of these and one of these. And I've given myself a budget of £20 or, you know, $20 or whatever it is, wherever in the world you are. And then skills. The skills, I'm going to allow you to go, either, ah, I'm just going to sit and doodle and remember the skills that I had as a child. The trick with skills in creativity is that you need to allow and remember. Or just allow because you let creativity lead. So you sit down, you have a hot date and you go, I don't remember how to do this, but I'm just going to give myself over to creativity and put pen on a page or fingers on a keyboard of a piano, whatever it is. Time, energy, resources, money and skills, you set yourself up for creative success, however fumbly that might be. You put all the gremlin thoughts in the bag and you just go, I can revisit those in a minute. I'll remember them because they will show up after my 20 minutes. They're going to show up in force and go, why did you do that? La, la, la, la, la. Just notice them and go, thank you. You're not invited to this session.

Yeah, fantastic. I love that expression. I've never thought of that before, that if you have your kit, you take it from somewhere and put in the gremlins, like swapping them over and putting them in that bag. I love that. That's a really great idea. Fantastic. Okay, so somebody Then who started to do this is then allowing themselves to think about that part of themselves are going to connect with it. So they're, they're actually believing it's something they could reintroduce on a regular basis. And some people, I was one of these, immediately went, ah, I know what it is. And I had a massive goal which was I went from, how can I reintroduce creativity into my life. Within a week it was, oh, I think I'm going to write a novel. And then by the next week it was, oh, actually I don't just want to write it, I want to publish it and be an author. I had not any clue that this was there underneath. So then some people will have that direction, but they won't have any idea how to get from, I've just started writing twice a day for 10 minutes to I'm going to finish this big thing that I now want to do. So if there's somebody like that who has the drive, who has the motivation, who has connected really quickly, but is feeling a little bit isolated, a little bit lost in not knowing what to do, where would somebody like you come into their lives and how would that help them?

Okay, well, probably someone like me would come into their lives through someone like you.

Yeah.

And so what you need is support. So there's a couple of Rs here. You already highlighted it. First of all, rhythm and routine. So you want to be setting aside that time. So that 20 minute experiment has now turned into I'm writing twice a week. So I've set aside two hours a week to write, but I don't know how to get there. So the other part of rhythm and routine is you need to know what to do during those dates with yourself, so to speak. And the best way to do that is reverse engineering. So one, you have the vision of 1700 people are reading my book in the first year it's out or whatever it is. It's like, whoa. So you want to actually make it as tangible as possible. So what does that look, feel, sound like out in the world? I'm going on a book tour and I'm actually reading bits of my book to people. It hasn't even been written yet, but that's where you take yourself. So you take yourself into the imagination of what do I want to have happen with this thing? It might not actually happen in that way because you might change your mind along the way, but it's a good starting point. At that point, the best thing to do and whether you do it with someone like me, or whether you initially sit down and do it for yourself is to reverse engineer it. So you've got this picture of I'm reading my book to people on a book tour in six countries. Who knows, right? You just make it up. Then you go, well, okay, what needs to happen along the way for that to have happened? You go, well, I needed to have published it. Do I know anything about publishing? So notice the tone in my voice here. It's not a sneery, well, you don't know anything about publishing. No, I asked it as a question, do I know anything about publishing? And a very simple no comes out. It's like I'm going to note down, I don't know anything about publishing. Great. Do I know anything about proofreading? Do I even need it? You make this list of, here are all the things that I don't know about. How exciting is that? So you do your best to do that and at this point be ready to go, okay, well, who do I know that knows about such and such a thing? And that's the point at which you go, oh, I actually need an accountability coach to just keep me writing, for example. Or I need to find out more about publishing. So who do I know that knows that? So you start to identify what don't I know? And you continue to be really curious in the same way that you did with your how do I even want to create in the first place? You now become really curious about that. And again, the gremlins go in the bag. They are good to you by highlighting where you don't know how to do that. And it's like, great, thanks for that bit of information. That's fabulous. I'll add that to my list. Thank you very much. So you want to be working with the gremlins, but you don't want them to take over. So reverse engineering. So rhythm and routine and reverse engineering. Imagine your beautiful future, your best future for this creative endeavor, and then start to work it back bit by bit by bit, identifying all the things you don't know along the way. And you go, oh, I'm gonna need a coach if I'm prone to - My gremlins keep coming out the bag and sitting on the table when I'm trying to write. You probably need someone like me to speak to once a month or so to just go, all right, let's talk to each one of them and see what's going on. Because that doesn't sound mad, but it really helps.

Yeah, that's great. Right So I know that there's some people who will have all of that ambition and a clear idea of what their future looks like and maybe have taken some support and got themselves to a certain point, but don't feel like they are allowed to do this thing. I'm lucky I wasn't one of those. I've always decided, okay, this is what I'm doing, and off I go. But I know that there are some people who feel so responsible and so sensible, and the problem with that is all of their beliefs, I think we did touch on this last time, are so ingrained because they've been there from when they were little. Either the family environment or something a teacher said or whatever, and they're not able to let go of them. So you're obviously working with them now in this situation because they recognize they need support. So how can they overcome those problems?

Okay, so this one, it really is a. If everyone else is allowed, why aren't you? So sometimes that's enough. 'Simple awareness is often curative' was one of the best things I was ever taught. So even becoming aware that you're not giving yourself permission, because it is a permission thing, you may actually need to do a little bit of delving about where is that lack of permission coming from? And usually permission and responsibility go hand in hand, like sides of a coin. So it's like you've got permission on one side, but you've got allowing on the other side. I'm not allowed, or I am allowed, you know, sort of. So two sides of the same coin. And sometimes not allowing yourself is resistance. Sometimes it is a fear of rejection, of, can I do it? It's a doubt. At that point. You may need to speak to a coach, a guide, sometimes even a therapist to actually go, this has now surfaced and is coming up for healing. I had a mentor myself, Barbara. Absolutely beautiful soul. No longer with us in the world, but in my head pretty much every day, actually. And she said, you know, you're never given more than you can handle. Do you know how you'd know? No? She said, "you'd be dead.2 I was like, "oh, okay. Good to know." So by the very instance that I'm breathing and alive, I can handle it. And, yeah, I know it sounds flippant, but it's actually really profound because I'm alive. I know. And this is surfacing now. I've done enough living that I can now handle this thing. It might not be easy, but that's not the point. The point is I can handle it. Rather than run away from it. Rather than use it as resistance, we need to actually step into it. You know, some people jump straight into a pool like from standing start. Don't know how. Some people are toe dippers. I'm a toe dipper and I'm just going to dip my toe in and see how the temperature is and then kind of do it bit by bit. I'm walking in. If you've got to a stuck point, it usually means there's a permission that's required. There's a part of you that is actually scared. The rest of you is going, yeah, but look at the brightness of the future. But there's a part of you that's going, yeah, but you don't remember the thing that, that might get in the way and it's going to be really painful. And so you've got these two parts of you that are like fighting where you experience pause and resistance. It's at that point where you go, do I need to dive deeper? And who can I do that with?

Yeah, yeah. So stuckness, one of the things might be something inside you that's trying to keep you safe is what you're basically saying there, isn't it? And often when we do that self sabotage thing, that's the same thing going on. It's. We're all many things and we all have different aspects to us and we often think of that other part as being annoying, like getting in our way. But it's trying to do something to help us. One of the things that you said earlier was making an appointment to sit down and think.

Many people who are creative and resisting it don't make time to feel.

Yes.

So sitting down to feel probably feels even scarier as you're listening right now. But making the time to think. Yes, but feel and think is really good.

Okay, so one of the reasons we're talking is because we've known each other for quite a while. You have absolutely helped me in various of these stages. Everyone who needs support is different. Everybody needs potentially a different person. But more often than not it's because they need them at different points in that route along the way. So one of the things I love about coaching, obviously I'm a fan because I am a coach too. But one of the things I love about it is it's forward movement. There are lots of really good reasons for needing other types of support. And as you mentioned, it may be that you do need to go deeper with a therapist. But what I love about coaching is it's not saying You're a mess. You've got all this stuff over here that means you'll never be able to do it. It's like, well, how can we move forward? What is it that we can do round over, under that stuckness? One of the reasons we're talking is because I do less coaching now than I used to. I still do a little bit of mentoring for writers, but I really felt it was important because I know everybody's different, that it may not be writing that people want to do, but that creativity is so important to everybody that I wanted to broaden that.

And also I wanted to make sure I made time for my own creativity. So really want to help the people who are listening to the podcast to be able to take those next steps wherever they are. They might be quite a long way down the route, but they're probably more likely earlier on in that exploration, and I wanted to help them, so I thought to myself, well, how can I do that? So that's one of the reasons why we're talking today. But I'd also like a little bit of understanding of you and your creativity and how it manifests and how that's changed since the last time, because I know we talked about this before. So tell us a bit more about Helena.

So my creativity, that the core of it is synthesizing. So I'm really good at hearing all kinds of concepts and seeing that come together. So I feel into someone's vibration, how they're showing up, what they're saying. I listen to every word, but I'm listening beyond the listening. And eventually someone, sort of, after 10 minutes with me, they're in a muddle, and they do whatever it is, and I just help people see the wood for the trees. My creativity shows up in synthesizing imagined futures. And I go, well, so there's this, this, this, and this. So I use this, and people just look at me like, are you a witch? You know, so. So my creativity comes out in holding really good space and then picking things out and stitching a little. Is this it? And then we work with the draft version and we unpick some stitches, and that's how it is. So my creativity also comes out like I sit and I absorb. I just look and I see. I am not a good drawing person, but I love carrying around my big fat pencils because it just allows me to create without having to publish. And I think that's a really important distinction, is creativity for the sake of creativity. In answer to the question, my creativity comes out when people show up in front of me confused or overwhelmed, listening and then continuing to sit and then go, here's what I heard. And most of the time that's what someone needs. And then you can actually decide on what needs to happen as a result of that realization. But many people don't make space for that piece. Just go straight to the resolution, which then doesn't encompass all the different levels of the spiritual, the mental, the emotional, the practical and the physical, and even the financial. You know, there are many levels to an issue and all of those need to be seen. And I have the ability to see, synthesize that. So that's honestly how my creativity comes out.

If you were to not have to work, which is a lovely thing that people dream of sometimes, how do you think you would be spending your time?

I might spend some of my time looking at the big blue, which is amazing. There was an incredible thunderstorm here last night. I would still do inspiring. I would still be in inspiring spaces, or I would more likely be creating inspiring spaces where people can come and be them best selves. Because I love gathering people. I love people connecting to themselves. I love people connecting to each other. So I would probably just organize massive lunches where people came together to feel free and have conversations they don't normally have. Because that, for me, going into my mission now, is what makes this world a better place. The more we can connect to ourselves and then connect to others and be open to all the different kind of facets that are around, the more we come up with creative ways to undo some of the not so good things that we've done to the world. Yeah, with creativity, by looking at it differently. What can we do together? Is a question that drives me. If I was financially well off and I didn't have to quote, unquote, go to work, I would create situations where people could bring out their creativity in service of the planet.

Brilliant.

So basically you'd be doing what you're doing now, but you would have a bit more freedom to decide when and where.

And it really would be about creating spaces and places inside people and in the outside practical world where people can step back from their day to day, try on something new and go, actually, I can do this. I meet many, many people who say they're not creative and yet they organize an event for 250 people with no problem. That's creativity at work. You know, there's. We need to redefine how and accept that we are creative humans. And so I'm in the service of that as you are.

Yeah, I do worry. Worry is probably too strong a word. I am concerned that we need to recognize how important, in fact, how fundamental our creative selves are to basically survival, to saving ourselves and to saving the planet. And it is about that definition. I come back to it many times, pretty much every time I talk to somebody, because somehow that definition has been narrowed down so much that that's why people say they're not creative, partly because some people told them they weren't, but when they said that, they were probably using the wrong definition. And actually it's that creative thinking and that connection. So I wanted to ask you a question. When we first spoke, AI was just starting to bubble up as a thing. And interestingly, I did a little bit of research about generational attitudes towards it, and apparently Generation X's, of which I am one, are cautiously optimistic because we don't go, oh my God, it's terrible, yes, go away, go away. It's just going to be the end of the world. And we equally don't go, wow, this is amazing. Let's play this new toy. We're kind of in the middle somewhere because we do recognize, because we've seen enough of these revolutions that we recognize that there's good and bad with everything and it's how we use it. So I'm curious, how are you using it at the moment? Are you finding that there are some great tools out there that people can use? And then what it can't do, it can't replace that connection, it can't replace that free thinking conversation. So, yeah, those two things.

So I am using it absolutely to do the heavy lifting in my business and somewhat in my life as well. People are either coming into it in one of two ways. They're either going help me organize this thing on a personal level, or more likely, help me run a business and. Or do what I do better at work. I think the naysayers, for example, that might look like for me, I love being creative in terms of how I do my posts out on social media. I don't show up very often, but I like to craft that. But not use AI for my newsletter because I love my voice being out there. And even though AI is getting so much better at emulating who you are and what your style is, but that takes away my pleasure at sitting just in a space of thinking about what do I want to share. So I think the answer for me is I can get it to do some heavy lifting around, proofreading things around, actively casting an eye over something before I even give it to a publisher, for example, I can get it to act as a publisher and pick holes in my manuscript, for example, so I could instruct it to do all sorts of things. And at the end of the day, I, you, we all are the boss of our own little agent or AI that we're currently using. So the idea here really is to say, what do I want to collaborate with AI on? Because I do feel it's a collaboration, it's a partnership. How do I need to educate it so that it's actually being me but also being not me? Because sometimes hearing the opposite really helps. And so I'm using it very much to help me do the things that I actually find a little bit tiresome and boring. So I made a list of what do I find tiresome and boring and I have set up various things that actually do that. If there's one thing you do is to sit back, take 10 minutes out to think, feel your way into this question, which is how does my creativity show up in my world right now? Where am I creative? And when I'm at my creative, if you want a bonus one, when I'm at my creative best, what's that like? That one's the real feeling one and I'm relating that back to AI. On the back of that you have an idea of, I can use AI to take on these activities, but these are the ones I safeguard for myself and for me, community. Because I run communities and I do coaching in this level. What it cannot yet do, I'm open to difference. What it cannot yet do is provide the human comfort, provide the nuance of understanding when someone goes that I need to be quiet until they come back and are ready. AI does not understand the nuances of your needs from that perspective, community does. And a good coach does. So I think though, that's my answer at the moment. And if you ask me, in six months it'll probably be different.

Absolutely. Yeah. I'm completely on the same page as you. Still trying to work out what I'm using it for and not using it for. I think it comes down to listening to those terms as well.

Going back to that it sits in resources, but it's also a time sucker because it will continue going like without you realizing you're tired. So you might actually want to set yourself kitchen timer and just go, I'm going to spend 20 minutes on here, I'm going to follow every suggestion, then I'm going to stop and I'm actually going to really think and reflect on it.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. It's been brilliant. It's been short and sharp and sweet and we will no doubt be talking again. So thank you so much for being here.

You're welcome. I've loved it and I can't wait to see what happens as a result of all of this deliciousness.

Take care.

I'm so grateful to Helena for her generosity in sharing her tips and wisdom for the second time here on the podcast. I hope you're now able to see a way through and can take your next step with confidence, whatever stage you're at in exploring your creativity. Having her support over the last few years has made all the difference and shaped both my entrepreneurial thinking, my work on this podcast, and my approach to creative living. And as a quick reminder, if a podcast is a creative adventure you'd like to begin, check out the links for Alitu, my podcast recording and editing software, and captivate my podcast hosting software. I really couldn't do it without these great, easy to use tools. So back to that exciting news I promised earlier. Before we close this season, I want to share something that has been brewing behind the scenes and is directly relevant to my conversation with Helena. Usually at this point, I would be telling a story of one of my creative adventures and how an insight or a nugget of wisdom shared by one of my other guests has helped me through a creative challenge. Every one of my 36 guests has taught me something: a practical tip, a new approach, a new way of thinking. And as my own creativity has evolved, I have also been directly supported by talented professionals who have brought real value to my creative practice. I trust them because I have experienced the care, the clarity and the attention they bring to what they do. Creative work often includes moments when things feel uncertain or difficult to untangle. Knowing when to seek support and who to turn to is often part of that process. And so the creative pit crew was born from my desire to make that decision a little easier for you. It is a curated and evolving resource and brings together professionals who can help with different aspects and stages of the creative journey, from creative direction and mindset to the practical ways to support your creative business. Soon, in the resources area of the website, you'll be able to find a dedicated area for the pit crew. Initially, it will include three: my own work with debut novelists, Helena's work with creative entrepreneurs, and Chloe Jessamy, who supports the operational side of creative businesses. I have worked closely with both Helena and Chloe and know their approach and the care that they bring to their work. Some creative pit crew relationships include referral or affiliate arrangements. These are always shared clearly and are based on trust and personal experience. My role is simply to make the introduction. This feels like a fitting way to close the season. Creative work benefits from trusted supporters, and the Creative Pit Crew exists to make that support easier to find when you're ready for it. For your own creative adventures, find out more about creative living by subscribing to The Bold Types on Substack or get in touch with me on Instagram. All the links are in the show notes. Tell me about your stories too. I love hearing how you're getting on. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Creative Switch. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review over on podchaser.com and if you've got any questions, please let me know on Instagram at nikki underscore vallance Whilst there's no firm date for recording new episodes yet, I already have almost a full season's worth of guests pencilled in. So don't worry, we will be back. That's it for this season. I'm taking the next few months to work on my second novel, but I'm not disappearing. I will also be continuing my exploration of the art and science of creative living in the Bold types, so do join in the conversation and share your ideas and experiences there. Until then, keep creating and remember why. Survive and you can thrive.